Geology topics

D.L. Shuster

Publications and source records attributed to D.L. Shuster.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

USGS2022

Aqueously altered igneous rocks sampled on the floor of Jezero crater, Mars

The Perseverance rover landed in Jezero crater, Mars, to investigate ancient lake and river deposits. We report observations of the crater floor, below the crater’s sedimentary delta, finding the floor consists of igneous rocks altered by water. The lowest exposed unit, informally named Séítah, is a coarsely crystalline olivine-rich rock, which accumulated at the base of a magma body. Fe-Mg carbonates along grain boundaries indicate reactions with CO 2 -rich water, under water-poor conditions. Overlying Séítah is a unit informally named Máaz, which we interpret as lava flows or the chemical complement to Séítah in a layered igneous body. Voids in these rocks contain sulfates and perchlorates, likely introduced by later near-surface brine evaporation. Core samples of these rocks were stored aboard Perseverance for potential return to Earth.

Science↗

USGS2008

Two-phase Neogene extension in the northwestern basin and range recorded in a single thermochronology sample

We use a combination of apatite 4He/3He, (U-Th)/ He, and fission-track thermochronology to date slip on the Surprise Valley fault in northeastern California by analyzing a single sample from the Warner Range in the footwall of the fault. This sample, a granitic clast from a conglomerate, yielded a fission-track age of 11.6 ?? 2.8 Ma and a (U-Th)/He age of 3.02 ?? 0.52 Ma. Geologic relationships indicate that this sample was buried to a depth of ???3.3 km prior to exhumation during slip on the Surprise Valley fault. Fission-track age and length data indicate that the sample was fully reset (>120 ??C) prior to exhumation, which began sometime after 14 Ma. A single aliquot of nine apatite grains was step-heated for 4He/3He analysis; modeling of the resulting 4He distribution indicates that cooling from <80 ??C to ???20 ??C occurred between 3 and 1 Ma. Interconsistent time-temperature (t-T) solutions to the combined 4He/3He, (U-Th)/He, and fission-track data require two distinct periods of cooling, consistent with non-continuous slip on the Surprise Valley fault. Early cooling and fault slip took place between 14 and 8 Ma, followed by more recent fault slip ca. 3 Ma. This timing is consistent with both local geologic relationships and with the regional timing of faulting along the western margin of the Basin and Range Province. These data demonstrate the resolving power of combined fission-track, (U-Th)/He, and 4He/3He thermochronometric data to extract low-temperature t-T information from a single sample close to Earth's surface. ?? 2008 The Geological Society of America.

Geology↗

USGS2002

Tracing and quantifying magmatic carbon discharge in cold groundwaters: Lessons learned from Mammoth Mountain, USA

A major campaign to quantify the magmatic carbon discharge in cold groundwaters around Mammoth Mountain volcano in eastern California was carried out from 1996 to 1999. The total water flow from all sampled cold springs was ??? 1.8 ?? 107 m3/yr draining an area that receives an estimated 2.5 ?? 107 m3/yr of recharge, suggesting that sample coverage of the groundwater system was essentially complete. Some of the waters contain magmatic helium with 3He/4He ratios as high as 4.5 times the atmospheric ratio, and a magmatic component in the dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) can be identified in virtually every feature sampled. Many waters have a 14C of 0-5 pmC, a ??13C near -5???, and contain high concentrations (20-50 mmol/1) of CO2(aq); but are otherwise dilute (specific conductance = 100-300 ??S/cm) with low pH values between 5 and 6. Such waters have previously escaped notice at Mammoth Mountain, and possibly at many other volcanoes, because CO2 is rapidly lost to the air as the water flows away from the springs, leaving neutral pH waters containing only 1-3 mmol/1 HCO-3. The total discharge of magmatic carbon in the cold groundwater system at Mammoth Mountain is ~ 20 000 t/yr (as CO2), ranging seasonally from about 30 to 90 t/day. Several types of evidence show that this high discharge of magmatic DIC arose in part because of shallow dike intrusion in 1989, but also demonstrate that a long-term discharge possibly half this magnitude (~ 10 000 t/yr) predated that intrusion. To sustain a 10 000 t/yr DIC discharge would require a magma intrusion rate of 0.057 km3 per century, assuming complete degassing of magma with 0.65 wt% CO2 and a density of 2.7 t/m3. The geochemical data also identify a small ( < 1 t/day) discharge of magmatic DIC that can be traced to the Inyo Domes area north of Mammoth Mountain and outside the associated Long Valley caldera. This research, along with recent studies at Lassen Peak and other western USA volcanoes, suggests that the amount of magmatic carbon in cold groundwaters is important to constraining rates of intrusion and edifice weathering at individual volcanoes and may even represent a significant fraction of the global carbon discharge from volcanoes. ?? 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research↗

USGS2001

High CO2 emissions through porous media: Transport mechanisms and implications for flux measurement and fractionation

Diffuse emissions of CO 2 are known to be large around some volcanoes and hydrothermal areas. Accumulation-chamber measurements of CO 2 flux are increasingly used to estimate the total magmatic or metamorphic CO 2 released from such areas. To assess the performance of accumulation chamber systems at fluxes one to three orders of magnitude higher than normally encountered in soil respiration studies, a test system was constructed in the laboratory where known fluxes could be maintained through dry sand. Steady-state gas concentration profiles and fractionation effects observed in the 30-cm sand column nearly match those predicted by the Stefan-Maxwell equations, indicating that the test system was functioning successfully as a uniform porous medium. Eight groups of investigators tested their accumulation chamber equipment, all configured with continuous infrared gas analyzers (IRGA), in this system. Over a flux range of ∼200–12,000 g m −2 day −1 , 90% of their 203 flux measurements were 0–25% lower than the imposed flux with a mean difference of −12.5%. Although this difference would seem to be within the range of acceptability for many geologic investigations, some potential sources for larger errors were discovered. A steady-state pressure gradient of −20 Pa/m was measured in the sand column at a flux of 11,200 g m −2 day −1 . The derived permeability (50 darcies) was used in the dusty-gas model (DGM) of transport to quantify various diffusive and viscous flux components. These calculations were used to demonstrate that accumulation chambers, in addition to reducing the underlying diffusive gradient, severely disrupt the steady-state pressure gradient. The resultant diversion of the net gas flow is probably responsible for the systematically low flux measurements. It was also shown that the fractionating effects of a viscous CO 2 efflux against a diffusive influx of air will have a major impact on some important geochemical indicators, such as N 2 /Ar, δ 15 N–N 2 , and 4 He/ 22 Ne.

Chemical Geology↗